.
I had an interesting exchange with a friend last night, and
I could not get it off of my marginal mind…..so read and try to figure this
out, because I am writing and trying to figure it out……as I go.
NOBODY's life turns out as
planned. NOBODY’s. Everybody gets broken
along the line.....some by a little, some by a lot....but EVERYBODY can get
better. It might not be the better than we were at our best, but it sure as
hell can be better than we were at our worst. Nobody get's a pass...check your
man card at the door, see people, talk to people. If you need a shrink, see a shrink, if you
need to get to re-hab, then do that.
1. In my
second company command four of my soldiers died in a horrible vehicle accident
on the autobahn outside of Frankfurt, Germany.
I had to identify their bodies in the morgue of two different
hospitals. I called the Chaplain,
another captain the technically worked for me, and as I recall, the 0430 phone
call was me telling him “get your shit together, I will pick you up in 30
minutes.” It was a heartbreaking
experience; four lovely young men, mangled beyond imagination. The Chaplain could tell how upset I was and when
we returned home he faced me and said “Sir, life is for the living…..you have
to get past this, other people still depend on you.” And he was right.
2. My first wife and I were married for 21
years. She was and IS a wonderful
woman….she happened to be married to a drunken dickhead (that would be
me). We had plans for after I retired,
we had a son, we had zero debt and we close to being millionaires. Trust me, nothing makes you a pauper faster
than a divorce. She has re-married a WONDERFUL
man….I mean, I like this guy more than I like ME. He is an accomplished veteran and a law
enforcement officer, and has been a great stepfather to our now 23 year old
son.
3. Janet (my wife of 12 years), lost her first
husband to a rare form of aggressive cancer, leaving her with two sons (#1 and
#2….mine from my first marriage is #3).
She raised them solo through their teen years and although one needed
killing daily, she didn’t. Then she met
me after she had been a widow for years and her life went REALLY south. She spent 10 years in Kansas, a place I know
she hated, before we returned to Illinois.
When I got sick several years ago, she went to work at HD just to keep
us above water. I imagine there was not
a day that she didn’t want to kill me.
4. I have an aunt, wife to my late uncle, who is
a WONDERFUL woman, mother and grandmother…..I mean truly one of the best people
on earth. She was married to my late
uncle, brother to my late dad. Now,
neither of those two men were icons of society, frankly my aunt has blossomed
as a widow. Still a beautiful woman,
still pushing forward.
What is the point in all
of this?
It is this.
Nobody’s life is charmed,
turns out like we think, like we wanted.
If it did, I would be living in Macon, married to a girl named Charlotte
and a parent of (most likely) three grown daughters. I would be a General Officer, like more than
a few of the officers that worked for me.
My wife didn’t want to lose a husband and come close to losing
another. My aunt did not want a
peckerhead for a husband and almost certainly didn’t plan on burying him. My first wife absolutely was all in and never
imagined her husband, bad as he was, would leave her. The parents of those four soldiers never
conceived of the loss that they would endure when their kids were on the way to
the airport to come home, only to be killed in that horrible accident.
We are responsible for
us…..WE are responsible for US. We all
get broken, we all get off track, we all make bad decisions, we all make
mistakes. Recover, quit your stupid
shit, turn in your man card, get some counseling…..but get your life on track
while you can….it may NEVER be what it was because everything has changed,
everyone affected by what you do has changed.
But different isn’t bad, it is merely different. Trust me, you can wait too long….and if you
do, you are a moron.
Don’t be a moron.
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